Highlights

  • Pocketpair plans to implement anti-cheat measures for Palworld, including a player list function to help track cheaters and an external system meant to combat "particularly frequent" fraudulent activity.
  • Server-side player lists will roll out in late February, while the more comprehensive anti-cheating solution will debut afterward.
  • The anti-cheating measures will be optional for co-op and dedicated Palworld servers.

Pocketpair has shared the first details of its plans to crack down on Palworld cheaters, which include several countermeasure confirmations. Some of the newly announced actions will be implemented in a matter of weeks, whereas others are a bit further away from reaching Palworld.

In the first few weeks that followed its mid-January release, the biggest obstacle to enjoying Palworld's multiplayer modes was the game's online infrastructure, which was struggling to keep up with the massive player traffic. Just as Pocketpair got a handle on that issue, or at least managed to mitigate it by throwing money at Palworld's hosting provider, another problematic trend began gaining momentum: rampant cheating.

Palworld promo screenshot valley with white game logo featuring light blue outer glow
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New Palworld Anti-Cheat Measure Coming This Month

Taking to Twitter on February 16, the Japanese studio denounced Palworld cheaters, asserting it would not "tolerate any fraudulent activity." To that end, the developer intends to implement several countermeasures, starting with a "player list function" that will help keep track of cheaters on each server, thus assisting in the developer's efforts to issue timely bans and prevent repeat offenses. The feature will be part of an upcoming Palworld update meant to roll out in late February, Pocketpair said.

Beyond that, the developer has also made plans to implement an "external" system geared toward identifying and preventing cheating and other fraudulent activities that are "particularly frequent." That description suggests Pocketpair might have set its sights on dealing with some especially egregious forms of griefing that have become prevalent lately. E.g., reports of hackers deleting other people's characters or filling their inventories with rocks have been on the rise in recent weeks. Ditto for the claims that some players' save data has gotten stolen and overwritten by malicious actors using their Steam IDs—fabricated from the client side—to join public Palworld servers with pirated copies of the game.

Our entire team is working hard to get everyone back to a state where they can enjoy the game comfortably and with peace of mind as soon as possible.

Upcoming Palworld Anti-Cheat Measures

  • A server player list function to help identify cheaters.
  • An external anti-cheat solution to automatically identify and prevent frequent fraudulent activities (only mandatory on official servers).

Palworld Anti-Cheat Measures Won't Interfere With Modders

Pocketpair has noted that the upcoming anti-cheat measures will be optional for co-op and dedicated Palworld servers, as well as single-player. Meaning its plans won't interfere with anyone who wants to mod their game, whether alone or with friends, and will be solely aimed at cracking down on behavior that is detrimental to the game's multiplayer experience on the official servers.

The developer has also confirmed that it continues to examine various forms of cheating on a daily basis, indicating that additional measures against fraudulent activities could be added to the game in due time. This predicament that Pocketpair finds itself in stems from the fact that Palworld launched with no serious anti-cheating measures, delegating all data authorization activity to the client.